Megaprojects as instruments for sustainable development: Responding to global crises in an era of deep uncertainties

Introduction

We are pleased to announce the Call for Papers for the upcoming MeRIT conference dedicated to exploring the theme of "Megaprojects as instruments for Sustainable Development: Responding to global crises in an era of deep uncertainties". This conference aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and industry experts to share insights, exchange ideas, and discuss the transformative potential of megaprojects in responding to sustainable development needs, humanitarian and social crisis in times of turbulence.

Background

While projects as vehicles for change play a crucial role in society (Marcelino-Sádaba et al., 2015), project management research has increasingly investigated how, in the last two decades, projects contributed to change to re-shape futures and achieve sustainable developments (Aaltonen et al., 2026; Harrison & Whyte, 2026; Huemann & Silvius, 2017; Silvius & Schipper, 2014).

Among such vehicles for change, megaprojects have become increasingly prevalent in various domains such as infrastructure development, urban planning, transportation, energy, defense, and technology to produce science (Cerić et al., 2021; Schindler et al., 2019; Söderlund et al., 2017; Miller & Lessard, 2000). These project-based enterprises, characterized by their large-scale, capital-intensive nature and significant societal impact, can create positive change in the social, economic, environmental, technological, and political sphere, while attending to constraints on planetary resources and other grand societal challenges (Drouin & Turner, 2022). Megaprojects are more than neutral technical endeavours - they are social and moral instruments that structure relationships, have the potential of fostering opportunities and to create and distribute value (Drouin & Turner, 2022; Di Maddaloni et al., 2026; Gil & Fu, 2022).

Yet, with their potential to address pressing global challenges, there is an increasing demand from large-scale project initiatives to address society’s urgent needs arising from multiple crises due to persistent armed conflicts, geopolitical disruptions and the climate crisis (Ramalingam et al., 2026). Re-framing how we encounter crises from managing crises to embracing crises is required due to the challenges we are experiencing in today's world (Pearson et al., 2023), and recent studies have seen projects and other temporary organisations as vehicles for crisis response (Unterhitzenberger et al., 2024). As such, megaprojects as instruments for sustainable development in responding to humanitarian and social interventions are increasingly desirable and needed.

The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in its Global Humanitarian overview predicts that more than 300 million people will need humanitarian assistance globally (OCHA, 2025). The last two years saw geopolitical tensions and major conflicts such as Ukraine in Europe, Iran and Gaza in the Middle East, Sudan and elsewhere in Africa. As a result, more than 124 million people were displaced or suffered violence. A recent call for papers in the International Journal of Managing Projects in Business (Ramalingam et al., 2026) also highlighted that at the same time climate crisis is affecting the lives and livelihoods of more than 93 million people. This is causing food insecurity due to weather changes such as droughts, floods and cyclones that will result in hunger. The UN and its partner organizations are appealing for over $47 billion to assist over 190 million people across 72 countries (OCHA 2025). Indeed, the World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts the increased risk of ‘polycrisis’, “where disparate crises interact such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part” (Torkington 2023, Lawrence et al. 2024). Embedded in such uncertainties, humanitarian aid and NGO-led initiatives are often complex and shaped into "fuzzy projects" in which rational, political and psychological dimensions influence each other (Ika and Saint-Macary, 2023).

The International Organization of Migration’s impact report estimates that 117 million people worldwide face a displacement crisis due to conflicts and natural disasters (IOM 2024). At the same time, major initiatives across the globe have either been proposed or implemented with varying degrees of success and contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including end poverty in all its forms everywhere (SDG 1); end hunger, achieve food security and promote sustainable agriculture (SDG 2); ensure availability of water and sanitation for all (SDG 6); ensure access to affordable energy for all (SDG 7); build resilient infrastructure and promote industrialization (SDG 9); reduced inequalities within and among countries (SDG 10); take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact (SDG 13); protect, restore and sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, oceans and seas resources (SDGs 14 and 15).

Therefore, while upholding norms that define ‘success’ as the ability to stay on target and address pressing local and global needs (Di Maddaloni & Sabini, 2022), megaprojects will be expected to play a transformative role to keep pace with these societal concerns. Such a transformative role will require us to think critically about specific issues in our disciplines such as megaproject organising (Denicol et al., 2021), cross-sector collaborations (Di Maddaloni et al., 2025); cross-national governance (Ingason et al., 2022); multi-level configuration of supply chains and relationships (Stefano et al., 2023); purposeful leadership and personal responsibility (Whyte et al., 2022; Konstantinou, 2025); engaging communities (Derakhshan, 2022); building resilience (Naderpajouh et al. 2023), and digital transformation (Brown et al. 2022) in which technology is increasingly central to the organization and delivery of megaprojects, not only as an operational enabler but also as a source of new managerial capabilities.

Conference Themes

The conference seeks contributions from researchers and practitioners across diverse disciplines (organization studies, management, sociology, law, public administration, human resources, innovation, engineering, etc.) and sectors (public, private, nonprofit), to investigate megaprojects focused on addressing challenges faced due to societal and humanitarian concerns. The research reported would potentially cover how projects and programs were conceived, developed and implemented, and how they are organized and delivered to contribute to addressing such concerns. The possible questions include, but are not limited to:

How do megaprojects function as governance mechanisms during humanitarian crises?
How do megaprojects contribute to long term sustainable development?
What forms of legitimacy enable megaprojects to mobilize humanitarian or development responses in turbulent environments?
How do megaprojects reshape state–society relations in contexts of displacement, conflict, or climate emergency?
To what extent can megaproject governance reconcile efficiency, accountability, and social justice objectives?
How can megaprojects balance longterm strategic objectives with urgent humanitarian needs leveraging long-term development objective?
How are megaproject supply chains reconfigured during humanitarian crises?
How do public, private, and nonprofit actors coordinate within humanitarian or development megaproject ecosystems?
What forms of leadership are most effective in humanitarian megaproject settings?
How do project leaders navigate ethical tensions during crisisdriven megaproject delivery?
What collaboration capabilities enable megaprojects to respond effectively to polycrisis conditions?
How can megaprojects cocreate social value with crisis-affected communities?
What forms of stakeholder engagement enhance the legitimacy and resilience of humanitarian megaprojects?
How can technological development contribute to humanitarian and development goals while mitigating the risk of widening the technological divide among vulnerable groups and regions??
How can digital technologies transform coordination and decisionmaking in humanitarian megaprojects?
What role do AI and data infrastructures play in managing largescale humanitarian interventions?

Publishing Opportunities and Dissemination

Full Papers The review committee will invite the authors of the best papers to expand their work into a full article (8,000–10,000 words) and submit it to a fast-track review process for:

- the Special Issue “Beyond Traditional Project Management: The Role of Projects and Programs in Responding to Societal, Humanitarian and Development Challenge” in the International Journal of Managing Projects in Business

- a regular issue of Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management

Short papers The workshop primarily welcomes short papers (minimum 4,500 words). Authors of selected papers presented during the workshop will have the opportunity to publish their work in an edited volume with an international publisher (e.g., Springer), indexed in Scopus and Web of Science.

Paper format

References

Aaltonen, K., Alimadadi, S., Bos de-Vos, M., Hetemi, E. (2026). Call for papers: Sustainability by projects: Rethinking stakeholder engagement, legacy, and impact. Project Management Journal.

Brown, P., Souto-Otero, M., & Sadik, S. (2022). Digital transformation and the future of work. Digital Society, 559.

Cerić, A. et al. (2021) ‘Trust in megaprojects: A comprehensive literature review of research trends’, International Journal of Project Management, 39(4), pp. 325–338. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2020.10.007.

Denicol, J., Davies, A. and Pryke, S., 2021. The organisational architecture of megaprojects. International journal of project management, 39(4), pp.339-350.

Derakhshan, R., 2022. Building projects on the local communities’ planet: Studying organizations’ care-giving approaches. Journal of Business Ethics, 175(4), pp.721-740.

Di Maddaloni, F., Drouin, N., Zerjav, V., Vuorinen, L. and Babaei, A., 2026. Rethinking the creation of social value through projects. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 19(2), pp.193-203.

Di Maddaloni, F., Mosca, L., Castro, A., Glass, J. and Vecchiato, R., 2025. Twenty Steps to Better Collaboration: Bridging Project Organisations and Local Authorities in Major Infrastructure Projects.

Di Maddaloni, F., and Sabini, L. (2022) ‘Very important, yet very neglected: Where do local communities stand when examining social sustainability in major construction projects?’, International Journal of Project Management, 40(7), pp. 778–797. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2022.08.007.

Drouin, N. and Turner, R. (2022) Advanced introduction to megaprojects. Cheltenham, UK Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing (Elgar advanced introductions).

Gil, N. and Fu, Y. (2022) ‘Megaproject Performance, Value Creation, and Value Distribution: An Organizational Governance Perspective’, Academy of Management Discoveries, 8(2), pp. 224–251. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5465/amd.2020.0029.

Harrison, J. and Whyte, J., 2026. Future-Making in the Front-End of Projects. International Journal of Project Management, p.102854.

Huemann, M. and Silvius, G. (2017) ‘Projects to create the future: Managing projects meets sustainable development’, International Journal of Project Management, 35(6), pp. 1066–1070. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2017.04.014.

Ika, L. and Saint-Macary, J., 2023. Managing fuzzy projects in 3D: a proven, multi-faceted blueprint for overseeing complex projects. McGraw Hill Professional.

Ingason, H.T., Fridgeirsson, T.V., Gunnlaugsdottir, S.M. and Stefansdottir, E., 2022. A cross-national comparison of the project governance frameworks in two Nordic countries. Project Leadership and Society, 3, p.100075.

IOM (2024). World Migration Report Available at https://publications.iom.int/books/world-migration-report-2024

Konstantinou, E. (2025). The politics of the self: a Parmenidean, existentialist perspective on the project leader. International Journal of Project Management, 102695.

Lawrence M, Homer-Dixon T, Janzwood S, Rockstom J, Renn O, Donges JF. (2024) Global Polycrisis: the causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement. Global Sustainability. 7:e6. Doi:10.1017/sus.2024.1

Marcelino-Sádaba, S., González-Jaen, L.F. and Pérez-Ezcurdia, A. (2015) ‘Using project management as a way to sustainability. From a comprehensive review to a framework definition’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 99, pp. 1–16. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.03.020.

Miller, R., Lessard D., (2000) The Strategic Management of Large Engineering Projects: Shaping Institutions, Risks and Governance.

Naderpajouh, N., Matinheikki, J., Keeys, L. A., Aldrich, D. P., & Linkov, I. (2023). Resilience science: Theoretical and methodological directions from the juncture of resilience and projects. International Journal of Project Management, 41(8), 102544.

OCHA (2025) Global Humanitarian Overview Available at https://www.unocha.org/events/global-humanitarian-overview-2025.

Pearson, C., Naderpajouh, N. and Hällgren, M., 2023. Cultivating crisis research in project studies: Insights from management and organisation studies by Christine Pearson. International Journal of Project Management, 41(4), p.102477.

Ramalingam, S., Clegg, S., Konstantinou, E., Alkilani, S. and Sankaran, S., 2026. Call for papers: beyond traditional project management: the role of projects and programs in responding to societal and humanitarian issues. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 19(1), pp.10-16.

Schindler, S., Fadaee, S. and Brockington, D. (2019) ‘Contemporary Megaprojects’, Environment and Society, 10(1), pp. 1–8. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3167/ares.2019.100101.

Silvius, A.J.G. and Schipper, R.P.J. (2014) ‘Sustainability in project management: A literature review and impact analysis’, Social Business, 4(1), pp. 63–96. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1362/204440814X13948909253866.

Söderlund, J., Sankaran, S. and Biesenthal, C. (2017) ‘The past and Present of Megaprojects’, Project Management Journal, 48(6), pp. 5–16. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/875697281704800602.

Stefano, G., Denicol, J., Broyd, T. and Davies, A. (2023). What are the strategies to manage megaproject supply chains? A systematic literature review and research agenda. International Journal of Project Management, 41(3), p.102457.

Torkington, S. (2023, January 13). We’re on the brink of a ‘polycrisis’ – how worried should we be? World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/01/polycrisis-global-risks-report-cost-of-living/

Unterhitzenberger, C., Naderpajouh, N., Hällgren, M. and Huemann, M., 2024. Temporary organising and crisis. International Journal of Project Management, 42(2), p.102576.

Whyte, J., Naderpajouh, N., Clegg, S., Matous, P., Pollack, J., & Crawford, L. (2022). Project leadership: A research agenda for a changing world. Project Leadership and Society, 3, 100044

Important Dates

Short paper submission deadline: October 14th, 2026
Notification of Acceptance: October 21st, 2026
Early bird registration: October 30th, 2026
Regular registration deadline: November 27th, 2026

Submission Guidelines

We invite researchers, scholars, industry professionals, policymakers, and other interested individuals to submit original, high-quality research papers, case studies, or review articles addressing the conference themes. All submissions should follow the guidelines provided below and use the paper template.

Submitted papers must NOT have been previously published and if under review, must NOT appear in print before the MeRIT 2026 Conference.
Each paper for the Merit Conference should be a short paper, with an abstract of between 150 and 200 words and a total length between 4,000 – 6,000 words, NOT including references, title, index and taglines.
To facilitate the blind review process, remove ALL authors identifying information, including acknowledgements from the text, and document/file properties. (Any submissions with author information will be automatically DELETED; author information and acknowledgements are to be included in the submission form).
The entire paper (title page, abstract, keywords, main text, figures, tables, appendices, references, etc.), must be in ONE anonymised document created in PDF format and sent to: merit@unicatt.it
Only submissions in English shall be accepted for review.
In case of acceptance, the author or one of the co-authors should be available to present the paper at the conference. A presenting author can only present one paper at the conference.

We look forward to receiving your contributions and fostering meaningful discussions on how megaprojects can change the world for the better. Join us at MeRIT workshop to share your insights, collaborate with like-minded professionals, and contribute to shaping a sustainable and prosperous future through transformative projects.

For further inquiries, please contact: merit@unicatt.it